Darkness swallowed Pine Song Ridge as we dragged ourselves back to camp. Against every instinct, we’d been forced to leave Shen Jun’s body behind. Liang Yu lit a fire, and we gathered around it, huddled and silent, each lost in our own dread.
“It wasn’t a person who did that to him,” I finally said, my voice low and cracked. “Shen Jun that couldn’t have been done by a human. It had to be something wild, something from the woods.”
I whispered it again, almost to myself, “A bear. It had to be a bear. You all said it a bear could disguise itself, lure him into the trees, then....” I trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought.
Lin Qiang, still pale but awake now, suddenly glared at me, her eyes red and rimmed with tears and fury. “Enough with the bear crap. That’s a kid’s story, you get that? If there was a real bear, Shen Jun...my Shen Jun would’ve known. He’d never have just followed it into the woods like some idiot. You think he was stupid? God, I hate how you talk.”
Her voice broke, raw with grief and anger, her body shaking. “Honestly, I don’t know what Liang Yu sees in you, you’re scared of every shadow, you don’t know anything about camping. If you mention a damn bear again, I swear....”
I clenched my fists, my own anger flaring despite her pain. “So now you’re blaming me? Who dragged us all into this place in the middle of nowhere? Who took everyone’s phones and locked them up? Now look at us. The cars are wrecked, our phones are useless. We’re trapped here stranded. And you’re worried about hurt feelings?”
The fire crackled, our voices lost in the night, but the truth sat heavy on every shoulder: We’re alone. Whatever found Shen Jun is still out there, watching, waiting. And none of us not even Liang Yu can say what it really is.
But I’m starting to think I know
Lin Qiang’s face twisted in fury. She flung her food aside, tugged a jacket over her shoulders, grabbed a flashlight, and stood up as if to storm into the forest. Liang Yu blocked her, voice steady but urgent. “Don’t. It’s pitch-black. Going out there now is suicide.”
“Both of you, just calm down,” Zhao Shaoju said, trying to diffuse the tension. “I made sure to register our trip. We’re supposed to be out here for three days. If we don’t show up after that, the police will look for us.”
Lin Qiang allowed herself to be pulled back, but she sat there stewing, and I was too drained to keep arguing.
A sick, persistent feeling tugged at me the kind that whispers we won’t see the third day.
That night, we all wedged ourselves into a single tent. Even though no one could sleep, at least no one was alone. But around midnight, my bladder wouldn’t be ignored any longer.
“Liang Yu,” I murmured, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He gave me a reluctant look, until Chao Fei quietly added, “Me too.”
There was nothing for it Liang Yu grabbed the flashlight and a burning stick from the firepit for extra light, and the three of us crept out, barely daring to go ten feet from the tent. There was no time for modesty; Chao Fei and I hurried behind a fallen log and did what we had to do.
Just as I straightened up, that smell roared back worse than ever, thick as sewage, like rotted meat left in a tide pool for days. It punched down my throat, sent bile crawling up my windpipe.
Chao Fei gagged, clapped a hand over her nose. “What the hell is that? Did something just die in a latrine?”
Liang Yu cut her off with a sharp gesture and a hissed "Quiet."
Then things got even worse.
He passed me the flashlight, reached to the small of his back where he’d somehow kept the camping axe I gave him. I remember picking it out for him last spring forged steel, wicked edge, survival-ready. Never thought I’d see it drawn against something real.
He motioned us to turn our backs to a massive, gnarled pine, the three of us forming a tight defensive triangle.
“What is it?” My voice was barely a whisper, shaking with every word.
Liang Yu’s eyes never left the campsite. “The fire......it’s out.”
Chao Fei and I whipped around. Sure enough, the fire roaring just minutes ago was gone. Just a black spot on the earth, sending up faint, lingering threads of smoke.
“What are all you guys doing out here?”
A voice from the woods, directly behind us, nearly stopped my heart. It was Lin Qiang, looking sheepish, stepping into the circle of dim light. “I....I had to go, too.” I guess after our fight, she was too embarrassed to ask to come with us, so she’d just followed on her own.
I wasn’t about to care about that right now. “Wait, you mean Zhao Shaoju is alone in the tent?”
Lin Qiang blinked, confused. “Yeah.....why? And what is that stink?”
The answer went unspoken. If Zhao Shaoju was alone, and the fire had gone out, and the smell was back....
Liang Yu’s hand tightened on the axe. The wind shifted, carrying the unmistakable sound soft, deliberate, inhuman footsteps, circling just beyond the edge of the dark.
At that moment, a long, bloodcurdling scream tore through the valley so loud it echoed back from the hills, as if even the mountains wanted to scream with us.
Chao Fei clamped a shaky hand to her mouth, her whole body shaking. She tried to bolt toward the campsite, toward her boyfriend, but Lin Qiang and I grabbed her, clamping her between us.
“What....what is that?”
Lin Qiang was a mess, half hysterical, half catatonic from fear and grief. Not one of us dared move toward the source of Zhao Shaoju’s cries not even to look.
His screams were inhuman a ghastly, guttural howl, ragged and wet. They didn’t stop. They curled around each other, each one sharper and more desperate than the last, like a man being flayed alive.
But worse than Zhao Shaoju’s wailing was another sound, just audible beneath it;
a wet, rhythmic slurping, punctuated now and then by a sharp, meaty snap.
Sluuuurp.... Crunch..... Sluuurp.
Like someone gnawing at a bone with relish, swallowing down the marrow.
The four of us locked eyes in the dark.
Liang Yu finally sank to his haunches, silent, pinning Chao Fei down as she thrashed and sobbed.
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
We sat there, shivering, as Zhao Shaoju’s agony stretched on for more than three hours, until it finally, mercifully, faded to a stop.
Dawn, Finally
Before the sun crested the ridge, a figure rose at the campsite taller than a man, broad in the shoulders, moving on all fours but hulking, unmistakably a bear. Not as big as the brown bears I remember from zoos, but sleek, muscular, hide matted with dark blood. It loped away from the wreckage, head swaying back and forth like it was drunk on gore.
The others sagged in relief thinking, hoping, that the worst was over.
I froze.
Because before the bear disappeared into the woods, it turned its massive head and looked.
At us.
It knew.
It had known the whole time where we hid, how we trembled, how we prayed not to be next.
Then, just as I was sure my heart would burst, the creature swung around and vanished into the trees.
Liang Yu finally spoke, jolting me out of my stupor.
But his words barely registered.
Because for that split second
when it turned its cold, dead eyes on us
I could’ve sworn it was smiling.
Chapter 03
*
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